On-going
series: Crisis in the Caucasus - 2008
The Russian / Georgian Conflict and Its Impact on AzerbaijanWindow on
Eurasia: Original
Blog Article

Vienna, August 27 - Now that Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev has announced that Kremlin is recognizing Abkhazia and
South Ossetia as independent states, Moscow's plan for military
"buffers" around them outlined last week represents
the Russian government's clearest indication yet of how it intends
to continue its illegal occupation of Georgian territory.

Last Friday night, Russian Defense
Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told Medvedev that the "successful
withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia" had been completed,
but at the same moment, General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the Deputy
Chief of the Russian General Staff, presented a map, showing
the zones inside Georgia where Russian forces remain.

Nogovitsin said that these "buffer"
zones were necessary to protect Russian peacekeepers and the
government authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but the
map of these "security zones" indicates that Moscow
plans to use them to ensure that it can continue to put pressure
on Tbilisi, in violation of the ceasefire accord it signed (www.apsny.ge/analytics/1219778220.php).

According to Nogovitsyn, these
"security zones" inside Georgia will range in width
from six to 18 kilometers in most places but will extend to the
city of Senaki and the approaches to the key port of Poti [on
the Black Sea], which are located some 30 to 40 kilometers distance
from the borders of Abkhazia.

The Russian general said that
the borders of these "buffer zones" will extend in
the Abkhaz sector through the Georgian population centers of
Nabada, Chaladidi, Senaki, Kvia, Khudoni, Gunagua, Dzhikmuri,
Ochamchire and Anaklia and in the South Ossetian sector through
Perevi, Godora, Ali, Variani, Ikoti, Tsiara and Patsa.

Perhaps most ominously, Nogovitsyn
said that he had no intention of discussing these arrangements
or these borders with Georgian officials, thus arrogating itself
the right to decide what Russian forces will do and where they
will be located by asserting that "all these buffer zones
are legitimate and correspond to existing agreements."

Neither the French who prepared
the Ceasefire Accord, the Georgians who signed it, or the Americans
who have been close observers of what Moscow has been doing and
not doing on the ground, agree with Nogovitsyn's claims and,
thus, with Moscow's assertions that it has withdrawn its forces.
Instead, most observers see the Russian occupation as continuing.

In addition to Moscow's obvious interest in putting pressure
on Georgia and demonstrating to other countries in the region
and around the world that it can do what it likes, the Russian
military may have another reason for wanting to be stationed
this far forward, one that Moscow has been unwilling to acknowledge.

According to an analysis prepared
by the London Institute of Strategic Studies and published in
part by "The Times" of London, Russian forces defeated
their opponents not be better training or better weapons but
rather by, much as the Soviet military did in World War II, by
sheer numbers (www.akado.com/news/document26914/novoteka).

Among the shortcomings the Institute's
Colonel Christopher Langley pointed to in this analysis was a
lack of adequate armored personnel carriers, the inability to
protect senior officers ­ the commander of the 58th army
was wounded and evacuated soon after the invasion began ­
and the lack of both drones and planes capable of evading Georgian
ground fire.

Some senior Russian military
analysts agree, including Konstantin Makienko, the Deputy Director
of the Moscow Center for the Analysis of Strategy and Tactics,
who told "The Times" that Georgian military technology
was superior to Russian in this war and only Russian numbers
allowed Moscow to win.

Given that NATO and the West
have pledged to rearm and provide more advanced training for
Georgian forces, Moscow may have concluded that the only way
to ensure its continued military dominance in Georgia without
tying down a massive number of troops it does not have is to
use Nogovitsyn's "buffer zones" to push any future
battle line deep inside Georgia.